The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames

by Kai Bird

  43 “a 24-karat gold document”: Admiral James A. Lyons, testimony, Deborah D. Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 13. See also Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, Peacekeepers at War: Beirut 1983—The Marine Commander Tells His Story (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009), pp. 181, 185–86.

  44 in Baalbek, serving there until late January 1984: This key fact comes from the 2007 Farsi memoirs of Iran’s ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who reports that on January 24, 1984, Ambassador Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur complained to him about the “disorderly state of the Guards [in Lebanon] since Kan’ani left” (http://namehnews.ir/News/Item/19721/2). Courtesy of Ali Alfoneh, e-mail to author, February 18, 2013.

  45 “They got the order …”: “Mahmoud,” testimony, Deborah D. Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 15.

  46 “The Beirut embassy operation was directed …”: Vincent Cannistraro, e-mail to author, March 1, 2013.

  47 Mustafa Mohammed Najjar: Geraghty, Peacekeepers at War, pp. 199–201. Geraghty writes that Najjar was commander of the IRGC in Baalbek when a truck bomb struck the marine barracks in October 1983. But he also names Ali Reza Asgari as another IRGC officer who was involved in this attack.

  48 “I remember learning …”: Ambassador Robert Dillon, civil suit testimony, April 7, 2003, Anne Dammarell v. Islamic Republic of Iran.

  49 “managed to slip away”: Bergman, Secret War with Iran, p. 104.

  50 On April 7, 1995, the CIA learned: Ibid., p. 244.

  51 “Imad Mughniyeh came to Khartoum …” Ibid., p. 224.

  52 “suicide bombers could be devastatingly effective”: Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), pp. 173–74.

  53 Later, Bin Laden sent his agent: Ibid., p. 186.

  54 “just allegations …”: Nicholas Blanford, “Hizballah Mourns Its Shadowy Hero,” Time, February 13, 2008.

  55 Mughniyeh had played a key role: Blanford, Warriors of God, pp. 466–67.

  56 He died instantly: Ian Black, “Profile: Imad Mughniyeh,” Guardian, February 13, 2008; BBC News, February 13, 2008; Anthony Shadid and Alia Ibrahim, “Bombing Kills Top Figure in Hezbollah,” Washington Post, February 14, 2008. See also Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, Spies Against Armageddon (New York: Levant Books, 2012), p. 303; Blanford, Warriors of God, p. 465; Bergman, Secret War with Iran, pp. 379–80.

  57 “Mughniyeh was assassinated …”: Vincent Cannistraro, e-mail to author, March 1, 2013.

  58 “His was a rare case …”: Ronen Bergman, interview, Tel Aviv, October 11, 2012.

  59 “What they don’t know …”: Shadid and Ibrahim, “Bombing Kills Top Figure.”

  60 postage stamp in Mughniyeh’s honor: “Iran: First-Class Stamp Honors Militant,” New York Times, March 11, 2008.

  61 “His prayer mat is here …”: Robert F. Worth, “Hezbollah Shrine to Terrorist Suspect Enthralls Lebanese Children,” New York Times, September 2, 2008.

  62 born on January 10, 1957: Some sources say he was born on November 1, 1952. In the mid-1980s he married Zyba Ahmadi. Later, he acquired a second wife. He has four daughters and one son by his first wife.

  63 Asgari accompanied Iran’s minister of defense: Bergman, Secret War with Iran, p. 59. The two other officers were Col. Sayed Shirazi and Mohsen Rezai, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard.

  64 “from Kurdistan to Lebanon”: Brig. Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moghaddam, press statement, Fars News Agency, December 15, 2012: www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=13910925001246 (in Farsi), www.mashreghnews.ir/fa/news/178155. See also www.ashoora.ir/archive-article/tarikhche-hezb-allah/vorode-sepah-enghelab-be-sahne-lobnan/menu-id-41.

  65 “establishment of Hezbollah …”: Fars News Agency, December 15, 2012, www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=13910925001246. Farsi-language press sources also establish that Asgari was a close friend of Seyed Abbas Musavi, later secretary-general of Hezbollah. When Musavi was assassinated by the Israelis in April 1992, Asgari attended the funeral: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.mashreghnews.ir/fa/news/23943/%D8%B9%DA%A9%D8%B3-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%B6%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B3%DA%AF%D8%B1%D9%8A-%D8%AF%D8%B1%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86. I am in debt to Amir Hossein Etemadi for this research in Farsi-language sources. Amir Hossein Etemadi, e-mail to author, April 18, 2013. See also Bergman, Secret War with Iran, pp. 59–60. See also Gareth Smyth, “Mystery of Former Iranian Minister Deepens,” Financial Times, March 11, 2007. Smyth reports, “Mr. Asgari was the commander in the 1980s of a small group of Revolutionary Guards sent to Lebanon to train and organize opposition to the Israeli occupation.”

  66 “He [Asgari] held a very, very senior position”: Dafna Linzer, “Former Iranian Defense Official Talks to Western Intelligence,” Washington Post, March 8, 2007.

  67 Asgari was rewarded with a promotion: Bergman, Secret War with Iran, p. 61.

  68 “Iran has a desire …”: Ali Reza Asgari, interview, As-Safir, Associated Press News Archive, April 11, 1991.

  69 the Revolutionary Guard “is not a militia …”: Magnus Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis (London: Macmillan Press, 1997), pp. 34, 84, 215. The BBC identified him as “Hadi Reza Askari.” Hadi is an honorific title, meaning “guide” or “leader.”

  70 Asgari “knows dirty secrets …”: Robert Baer, “Could a Missing Iranian Spark a War?” Time, March 22, 2007.

  71 “It was an organized defection”: Georges Malbrunot, “Passed Over for Promotion, Iranian General Defects,” Le Figaro, March 13, 2007; Laura Rozen, “Where Is Ali-Reza Asgari?” Politico, December 31, 2010.

  72 “willingly cooperating”: Linzer, “Former Iranian Defense Official.” See also Ivan Watson, “Understanding the Case of Ali Reza Askari,” All Things Considered, National Public Radio, April 2, 2007. Watson interviewed Robert Baer.

  73 “longtime Western intelligence agent”: Julian Borger, “Defection or Abduction? Speculation Grows After Iranian General Goes AWOL in Turkey,” Guardian, December 8, 2007.

  74 “[any] Iranian defector was highly valued …”: Vincent Cannistraro, e-mail to author, March 1, 2013.

  75 Asgari gave the Americans actionable intelligence: Bergman, Secret War with Iran, p. 294.

  76 “This type of defection …”: Malbrunot, “Passed Over for Promotion.”

  77 “a valuable asset for Western intelligence agencies …”: Borzou Daragahi, “Iranian Exile Speaks Out Against Militia He Once Supported,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 2009.

  78 “Salvation Committee”: Ebrahimi later said that this organization was renamed the “Rescue Committee,” and that it was run by the U.S. State Department to encourage Iranian defections. He said he was the only Iranian who served on the committee. “Interview: Amiri Was Not Who He Pretended He Was,” Amir Farshad Ebrahimi (blog), August 7, 2010, www.farshadebrahimi.com/2010_08_01_archive.html.

  79 “We were at the [Iranian] embassy together …”: Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Iranian Defectors Provide Crucial Intel,” Newsmax, April 1, 2008.

  80 “I brought my computer along …”: Erich Follath and Holger Stark, “The Story of Operation Orchard: How Israel Destroyed Syria’s Al Kibar Nuclear Reactor,” Der Spiegel Online, November 2, 2009.

  81 Asgari was whisked to Washington, D.C.: Timmerman, “Iranian Defectors.” Amir Farshad Ebrahimi was Timmerman’s source for this information. Washington has still not officially acknowledged Asgari’s defection. According to one CIA source, Asgari is not on the official list of declassified defectors.

  82 “He lived in Lebanon …”: Linzer, “Former Iranian Defense Official.”

  83 Asgari was brought to a CIA safe house: Bergman, Secret War with Iran, p. 351.

  84 Iran was helping Syria to develop nuclear weapons: Ibid., p. 358.

  85 A German defense ministry official revealed: Associated Press, “Iran Ex-deputy Minister Jailed in Israel,” NBCNews.com, November 15, 2009, www.nbcnews.com/id/33951026/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/wid/7/#.USZmVFriqKx.

&nb
sp; 86 Israeli air strike on a Syrian nuclear reactor: A lengthy Library of Congress report prepared by the Federal Research Division reported, “Asgari’s defection was significant because he was deeply engaged in establishing Iranian links with Hezbollah. Asgari seems to have provided intelligence to the Israelis and may have been the source of the intelligence they used in Operation Orchard to strike Syria’s nuclear reactor.” “Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile,” December 2012, p. 34, www.iranwatch.org/government/us-congress-libraryofcongressreport-1212.pdf.

  87 Mughniyeh’s cell phone numbers and recent photographs: Daniel Byman, A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 262.

  88 “It may be no coincidence”: Ronen Bergman, “Bracing for Revenge,” New York Times, February 18, 2008.

  89 “somewhere in Texas”: Follath and Stark, “Story of Operation Orchard.” In the spring of 2013 Asgari visited Leidschendam, in the Netherlands, where he gave testimony before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, authorized by the United Nations to investigate the 2005 assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri.

  90 Public Law 110: This 1949 law allows the CIA to bring in no more than one hundred essential aliens each year: “Whenever the Director, the Attorney General, and the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization shall determine that the admission of a particular alien into the United States for permanent residence is in the interest of national security or essential to the furtherance of the national intelligence mission, such alien and his immediate family shall be admitted to the United States for permanent residence without regard to their inadmissibility under the immigration or any other laws and regulations, or to the failure to comply with such laws and regulations pertaining to admissibility: Provided, That the number of aliens and members of their immediate families admitted to the United States under the authority of this section shall in no case exceed one hundred persons in any one fiscal year” (50 U.S. Code 403—Sec 403h).

  91 “At the unclassified level …”: e-mail to author, April 17, 2013, from a former NSC official in the Bush administration. Fran Townsend, a former NSC official who worked on counterterrorism; Mike Singh, former NSC official; and Charles Allen, a former counterterrorism official with the Department of Homeland Security, all declined to respond to questions about Asgari.

  92 “The value of information that Asgari could provide …”: Frederick Hutchinson, e-mail to author, February 28, 2013.

  93 Schmuel Litani, interview, Tel Aviv, October 18, 2012.

  Epilogue

  1 “I had to relearn how to move my body …”: Anne Dammarell, “Hidden Fears, Helpful Memories: Aftermath of the 1983 Bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut” (M.A. thesis, Georgetown University, 1994), pp. 24, 30.

  2 “I hate to say it”: Meir Harel, interview, Tel Aviv, October 18, 2012.

  3 “There was no deep trick to it”: Thomas Powers, Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda (New York: New York Review of Books, 2002), p. xv.

  4 “Bin Laden reportedly showed particular interest …”: Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, The 9/11 Report: The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), pp. 90–91.

  5 “Americans are blamed …”: Ibid., p. 76.

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